The Pixar Theory Explained

The Pixar Theory Explained

Jon Negroni, a Pixar fan, created the Pixar Theory back in 2013. This theory suggests that all Pixar films happen on the same planet, however when Pixar aren’t releasing them in the correct order so we, as Pixar fans, need to find out where and how they fit together on the new timeline. It’s hard to explain because it keeps on updating and changing with each new Pixar film but I will do my best to explain the order of Pixar films.

So for many, many years we believed that the first film in the timeline was “Brave”, but with the introduction of “The Good Dinosaur” this film has now taken the no.1 spot. “The Good Dinosaur” explains why the Pixar films are so similar to life on earth. The planet that the dinosaurs live in is an alternative earth, it’s similar in almost all other ways, except for the fact that an asteroid never collided with the planet. So why aren’t all following films about dinosaurs? Well, because they do end up dying out due to crazy weather which we see in the film. However what’s crucial is that we see that the dinosaurs advance enough to develop farming techniques which shows how animals on this planet have the ability to advance more than they do on earth.

The second film in the timeline is “Brave” which introduces magic to the Pixar world.  The film shows how animals and inanimate objects can and do on occasion behave differently from the way they are meant to. For example the Raven is able to talk and the knives and broom in the witches workshop acted of their own choice. You could say that it’s just the witch controlling them, but I don’t think that’s true because the knives do turn on the witch momentarily. 

The next film in chronological order is “The Incredibles” and this film shows the development of A.I which if you didn’t know is artificial intelligence. Syndrome creates a machine to try and defeat the Superheroes, but instead he makes a machine that ultimately leads to his demise.

Next we dive under the water with “Finding Nemo”. More and more animals are developing human traits like creating schools, transportation, day care services, real estate, traffic light systems and more. Marlin is so advanced that he can travel 1000’s of miles across the ocean to rescue his son. Nemo himself befriends intelligent fish in a fish tank that hatch a clever plan to escape the fish tank and return to the ocean.

Finding Nemo Poster

“Ratatouille” and “Up” are next which both show animals on land becoming more intelligent. “Ratatouille” introduces us to Remy who becomes one of the greatest chefs Paris has ever seen. Then in “Up” we hear from Charles Mintz that his dog, Epsilon, is also a great chef. However Charles dogs aren’t just chefs, they also become waiters and pilots. 

What’s also important in “Up” is that it introduces a faceless corporation that’s taking over everything. If you don’t know what I mean, I’m talking about the corporation that was buying up the real estate around Carls house and converting it into skyscrapers.

Next up are the Toy Story films and what’s important about these films is that the faceless corporation is given a name, and that name is Buy ‘N’ Large. They are the makers of Buzz Light-years batteries which we see in Toy Story 3.

The Toy Story films also show how inanimate objects have continued to act in ways they shouldn’t normally act and are actually becoming more human. For example they need someone to love, they can show a variety of emotions, they can communicate and move and they have dreams, hopes and desires. The Pixar world is a more advanced world.

At the end of Toy Story 3 the toys end up in a gigantic incinerator and although they luckily escape, it’s crucial in the Pixar Theory to show how the planet is becoming a lot more wasteful, and to combat the amount of waste they are producing they need to create these massive incinerators. This is showing how the world is heading towards a consume and throwaway society which will eventually lead to the events of “Wall-E”, but not just yet.

The next film is “Finding Dory”, where we see the oceans are becoming a dumping ground for waste, that people and companies are creating.

With a world that’s becoming more polluted by the day, the humans leave, they can’t survive on the planet and instead A.I steps up with Cars becoming sentient beings. However with all these cars that are on the planet, they’re producing so many more emissions and pollution the planets cars can’t cope on planet earth and they eventually become extinct. Luckily the Wall-E robots are there to compact them and clean them away.  

Next comes “Wall-E” where we see that Buy ‘N’ Large, and there awful effects on the planet means that mankind need to leave and spend 700 years on the Axiom. A.I developed on the Axiom, with some good machinery and some not so good machinery.

In the film Eve finds a tiny seed, takes it to the Axiom which eventually allows the humans to return to earth. They plant that seed and that plant grows into a tree which is the setting for “A Bugs Life”.

So where do the Monsters come from, well all that pollution didn’t disappear and it seeped into the humans skin and turned them into monsters. But I hear you say that humans exist in Monsters, Inc. Well let me remind you that you only see humans when they go through magical doors, the same technology from “Brave” might I add. However when you go through these doors, you’re actually going back in time and collecting screams, and then laughter, from the past.

The person who ties the whole Pixar Theory together is Boo from “Monsters, Inc”. She loves Sulley so much that she makes it her goal in life to try and find him again so she grows up and turns into the witch from “Brave”. Which is why the witch has a carving of Sulley in her workshop and why she’s obsessed with bears.

With every Pixar film that is released it’s time for fans of the Pixar theory to find out how it fits into the Pixar Theory. Jon Negroni, who’s the creator of the Pixar Theory, has actually written a book about the theory but I can’t find it anywhere in the UK to buy, so I don’t know what it’s like.

Let me know what you think of the Pixar Theory in the comments bellow and come back next Monday for another Disney blog.

The Making of Monsters Inc

The Making of Monsters, Inc

 

Cast

Sully is voiced by John Goodman. John was chosen by Pete Docter, the director, because he thought that John was the embodiment of Sulley, a warm and loveable monster.

Mike is voiced by Billy Crystal. Billy jumped at the chance to voice Mike because he had been offered the role of voicing Buzz Lightyear in the Toy Story film, but foolishly turned the role down. Billy regretted this decision as soon as he saw Toy Story and from then on he knew he would accept any role Pixar was offering. Billy has gone on to say that Mike is his most favourite character he’s ever played.

 

When Billy was brought in to voice Mike he wanted to do a lot of improvising, put his own spin on the character but he couldn’t do that because John had already voiced his lines so they asked John back to see if they could voice their lines together and because Johns such a lovely guy he agreed. Personally, I think this should be done more because in the cases where actors have worked together, you always get more witty dialogue, like Timon and Pumbaa.

 

 

Boo is voiced by Mary Gibbs. Mary’s father worked at Pixar, he was a storyboard artist for Monsters, Inc and one day they were looking for a child who could come in and the animators could draw and have some voice work done. Marys father, Rob, suggested his 2 year old daughter Mary. She came in with pig tails and the animators drew her to get an idea of what the child could look like and sound like. In most cases the actor or actress coming in to be referenced wouldn’t be picked up but this time it stuck. Mary was very comfortable seeing as this was her dads work and work colleagues. To get the voice recordings of Mary they followed her around the sound studio and recorded just any sounds she made. To get her to chat they showed her different puppets.

Later when they were making” Inside Out” Pixar used Mary’s voice for the scenes when Riley’s really young.

 

Randall is voiced by Steve Buscemi.

 

Waternoose is voiced by James Coburn.

 

Celia is voiced by Jennifer Tilly.

 

Roz is voiced by Bob Peterson, yes the female Roz is voiced by the male Bob Peterson who is a Pixar employee.

 

Yeti is voiced by John Ratzenberger. John has voiced a character in every single Pixar film ever released because he is Pixar’s good luck charm. He’s voiced Hamm in the Toy Story films, Underminer in The Incredibles, John in Wall-E and so on.

 

Fungus, Randal’s sidekick, is voiced by Frank Oz. Frank is a very successful voice actors having voiced many favourite characters. He has voiced Yoda in the Star Wars movies, Miss Piggy from The Muppets and Cookie Monster from Sesame Street.

 

Needleman and Smitty, the two teenage monsters who are fan boys of Sulley are voiced by Daniel Gerson.

 

George Sanderson, the monster that gets shaved is voiced by Samuel Lord Black.

 

Film Development

Pete Docter came up with idea for the films because of the thought when you’re a child that there is a monster living in your closet. From there the idea grew into the film it is today.

 

When they were designing Mike and Sulley, Mike didn’t originally have arms and Sulley was shorter, had tentacles, and was more of a brown and mauve colour and his fur is long and straight. They decided very early that the tentacles weren’t a good idea because they noticed that audiences eyes were drawn to the tentacles too much and it was too distracting. It was also considered putting glasses on Sulley however Pixar artists know that audiences look at the eyes to better understand the character and if a barrier is there like glasses then audiences aren’t going to connect with him.

When it was decided that Sulley would be hairy, the team at Pixar needed to do a lot of research and try out lots of different tests to see if it was possible to make a realistic looking hairy monster. The team at Pixar made something called “The Hairball model” which is exactly what it sounds like. On computers they created a ball of hair and then they put it through different tests, like shaking it up and down. They wanted to see how the hair in the CGI programme would react. Then they made the hair wet to see how that would change the look and feel of the hair. They did this again and again using different kinds of hair, for example it might be dirty hair, long or short, made of different textures and so on. This process straightened out a lot of kinks, excuse my hairlarious pun.

Taking all the knowledge from the Hairball Model they applied their findings to creating Sulley. He went through similar tests but also more advanced tests, for example what would happen to the hair when Sulley is holding something, like Boo for example, or what would happen when he’s running or getting covered in snow. One of the tests was to create an assault course for Sulley in the computer where he comes into contact with different objects and saw how his body and his fur would react. There is a video of you tube called “Monsters, Inc. – CGI making of (2001)” and it showcases the creation of Sulley and his hair.

 

Creating the scene where Sulley is covered in snow was the hardest and lots of the people in special effects were pushing back saying this is impossible, however they didn’t give up and the scene is in the film exactly how they imagined it, if not better. So now if there’s ever a scene that seems impossible to do it’s referred to as “Yeti’s Cave”.

It wasn’t just Sulley that they needed to animate, it was hundreds of monsters. All of the creatures are individual and they’re made to look like they’re made out of different materials and have different textures. For example Sulley is really fluffy, Randal is scaly, Waternoose is made out of a hard bone material and they needed to translate this. A lot of background monsters were created when they used the Hair Ball simulation.

 

The events of 9/11 took place 60 days before the film was going to be released. Everyone at Pixar were thinking about the ones effected, of course, but they were also thinking about whether anyone would actually go and see their film, or any film in the aftermath of something like 9/11. Pixar understood the need for sensitivity and so because of 9/11 they changed one of the scenes in there film. Originally after Boo had been spotted at Harry Hausens and Mike and Sulley are on the run and Mike says “That couldn’t have gone any worse” the Sushi building behind them was going to blow up with a mushroom cloud, but they thought this might be too insensitive so instead the sushi restaurant is covered with a giant force field.

 

Easter Eggs

Normally with Pixar films whenever a new film is released like Monsters Inc, they will put Easter Eggs relating to their next film in the movie. The next movie after Monsters Inc is Finding Nemo. Did you spot anything fishy? Well if you look at the paintings on the wall behind the sushi cutting octopus chef you’ll see a painting of a clown fish. Coincidence? I think not.

In Boo’s room there are lots of Easter eggs. Another Finding Nemo related one is that Boo hands Sulley a Nemo cuddly toy along with a Jessie doll. There is also a Luxo ball on the floor.

 

When Mike and Sulley go to work they walk past a cafe called “Hidden City Cafe”. This is a reference to a real life cafe that could be found in California near Pixar’s headquarters and it was frequented several times by Pixar executives like Pete Docter. In fact Pete has said that the first idea for the name of the film was going to be “Hidden City”.

 

When Randall gets his comeuppance and is sent into the human world, he lands in a trailer, this is the same trailer we see in A Bugs Life. Next to this trailer is the Pizza Planet truck which has appeared in almost all of the Pixar films.

 

Release, Reception and Awards

One of the trailers to promote the release of this film saw Mike and Sulley playing charades. Sulley is trying to act out Harry Potter and Mike just has no idea. It’s a funny trailer.

 

As I’ve already mentioned, Monsters, Inc came out not long after 9/11 and although they had their fears that the timing was bad this didn’t stop people from coming to see the film and not only that but enjoying the film.

IMDB gives the film an 8.0 out of 10. What do you think of the film? Let me know in the comments bellow. Personally, this is one of my least favourite Pixar films. I just don’t like the concept or identify with monsters. However I think I’m in the minority and I’m okay with that.

 

The film won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for “If I Didn’t Have You” which was written by Randy Newman, the same genius behind “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” from Toy Story.

The film has also won a BAFTA for Best Feature Film.

 

That covers everything about the Making of Monsters, Inc, come back on Monday 25th May for another blog.

Pixar in Concert Review

Pixar in Concert Review

A few days ago I had the pleasure of going to see Pixar in Concert at the Symphony Hall in Birmingham, this was a present from my mum that I received at Christmas. I have never been to anything like this before so I was very excited to go. I even designed an Up inspired top to wear to the event which my mum helped me make. You can see the top in the picture below. It says “Adventure is Out There”

I definitely wasn’t the only one to dress up, I saw some Disney Loungefly bags, people in spirit jerseys, someone was wearing a Woody top and there was a lot of other people wearing different Disney tops. It was a nice way to spot the big Disney/Pixar fans.

As I walked into the event there was a massive screen and in front of the screen was where the Novello Orchestra was with the conductor David Mahoney who was also the spokesperson for the event.

The concert focused on one Pixar film at a time, showing you clips and scenes of the film on the big screen, while a live orchestra plays music from that Pixar film below. For example they played Married Life from Up while scenes of Up played. They did Toy Story 1 and 3, Finding Nemo and Finding Dory, Monsters Inc and Monsters University, Incredibles 1 and 2, Cars 1 and 2, Up, Wall-E, Inside Out and Coco.

Some films showed whole clips and this was really lovely because it immersed you in the experience. The downside of this is that when you’re watching a sad scene, like the end of Toy Story 3 where all the toys are holding hands, looking like they’re about to be gone forever, it’s pretty hard to remind yourself you’re in public and that bawling isn’t acceptable.  

The most special part of the whole experience came right at the end when David, the conductor asked everyone to stand up and we all sang and danced to Toy Story “You Got a Friend in Me”, it was a really lovely moment and brought the audience together.

The only thing that did disappoint me about the experience was that there was no merchandise, no programme, no pin, no nothing. I have my ticket as a memento but I feel like it would have been nice to come away with something that will remind me of the experience.

I went to the last show of this touring production but I’m sure that there will be another Pixar in Concert experience again. Although I loved the experience and really enjoyed myself, I don’t think I would repeat the experience, I 100% would if it was Disney songs, but now that I’ve done it once, I don’t feel like I need to do it again. However  I would recommend the experience to everyone else of all ages.

If you went to see Pixar in Concert, please let me know in the comments below what you thought and come back on Friday 26th for my review of the Disney Cafe in the new Primark in Birmingham.